More like 2,5 stars. I'm not entirely sure whether to give this two or three stars, but at the moment I'm going with three.
First of all, I think this wasn't my kind of story. It's not bad - I think it would really help to be able to relate to the story, which I couldn't because I have never experienced something like this. I can imagine enjoying this better when you're around twenty five or thirty years old.
Julia Franck has a lot of potential, I think. Her writing is accesible with every now and then a lovely sentence that moves you. However, I feel like this book could do with more of those sentences. I also felt that she wanted to put too much into this book and not all of it seemed really coherent to me. I also thought that the characters could have been developed better.
Since this was only her second book, I'd still like to read "Die Mittagsfrau", because I think it's almost certain that her writing has improved since.